The goal of this research is to design and build an optimized optical system for the collection of Raman signal from blood samples, replacing our current system. Specifically, we plan to improve the efficiency of laser delivery, to increase the area and solid angle of collection, and to reduce the amount of background signal from optical components. Central to the new design are a reflecting Cassegrain microscope objective, which views a wide solid angle and eliminates the need for beamsplitters, and a fiber optic bundle, which transforms the circular image of the Raman spot into a line for delivery to the spectrograph. As in our current system, we will use a diode laser, an f/1.8 holographic grating spectrograph, and a LN-cooled CCD detector.